| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau by Honore de Balzac: circumstance, so common among the greater number of the petty Parisian
tradesmen, disturbed for a moment Cesar's brain. He ordered Celestin
to send round the bills of his customers and ask for payment. Before
doing so, the head clerk made him repeat the unheard-of order. The
clients,--a fine term applied by retail shopkeepers to their
customers, and used by Cesar in spite of his wife, who however ended
by saying, "Call them what you like, provided they pay!"--his clients,
then, were rich people, through whom he had never lost money, who paid
when they pleased, and among whom Cesar often had a floating amount of
fifty or sixty thousand francs due to him. The second clerk went
through the books and copied off the largest sums. Cesar dreaded his
Rise and Fall of Cesar Birotteau |
The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from The Turn of the Screw by Henry James: "In Harley Street?"
"In Harley Street."
"Well, miss, you're not the first--and you won't be the last."
"Oh, I've no pretension," I could laugh, "to being the only one.
My other pupil, at any rate, as I understand, comes back tomorrow?"
"Not tomorrow--Friday, miss. He arrives, as you did, by the coach,
under care of the guard, and is to be met by the same carriage."
I forthwith expressed that the proper as well as the pleasant and
friendly thing would be therefore that on the arrival of the public
conveyance I should be in waiting for him with his little sister;
an idea in which Mrs. Grose concurred so heartily that I somehow
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The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Taras Bulba and Other Tales by Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol: In spite of their great friendship, these rare friends are not always
agreed between themselves. Their characters can best be judged by
comparing them. Ivan Ivanovitch has the usual gift of speaking in an
extremely pleasant manner. Heavens! How he does speak! The feeling can
best be described by comparing it to that which you experience when
some one combs your head or draws his finger softly across your heel.
You listen and listen until you drop your head. Pleasant, exceedingly
pleasant! like the sleep after a bath. Ivan Nikiforovitch, on the
contrary, is more reticent; but if he once takes up his parable, look
out for yourself! He can talk your head off.
Ivan Ivanovitch is tall and thin: Ivan Nikiforovitch is rather shorter
Taras Bulba and Other Tales |
